Ubuntu manuals

Provided by: inn_1.7.2q-39_i386

NAME

       news.daily - do regular Usenet system administration

SYNOPSIS

       news.daily [ keyword...  ]

DESCRIPTION

       News.daily   performs  a  number  of  important  Usenet  administrative
       functions.  This includes producing a status report, removing old  news
       articles,  processing  log  files,  rotating  the  archived  log files,
       renumbering the active file, removing any old socket files found in the
       ‘‘firewall’’ directory, and collecting the output.  This program should
       be run under the news administrator’s id, not as root.

       By default, news.daily performs all of  its  functions  and  mails  the
       output  to  the news administrator, usenet.  By specifying ‘‘keywords’’
       on the command line, it is possible to modify the functions  performed,
       as well as change the arguments given to expire(8) and expireover(8).

       News.daily  should be run once a day, typically out of cron(8).  It may
       be run more often,  but  such  invocations  should  at  least  use  the
       ‘‘notdaily’’  keyword to prevent the log files from being processed and
       rotated too fast.

       The shlock(1) program is used to prevent simultaneous executions.

KEYWORDS

       The following keywords may be used:

       delayrm
              This uses the ‘‘-z’’ flag when invoking expire  and  expireover.
              The  names  of articles to be removed are written to a temporary
              file, and then removed after expiration by calling  expirerm(8).

       expctl=path
              Specify the file to use as the expire.ctl(5) file for expire.

       expdir=path
              By  default,  expire builds the new history(5) file and database
              in the same directory as the current files.  Using this  keyword
              specifies  a  different local to build the new files (by passing
              the ’’-d’’ flag to expire), which will  then  be  moved  to  the
              right location when finished.

       nostat This  keyword  disables  the  status report generated by innstat
              (see newslog(8)).  Without this keyword, the  status  report  is
              the  first  function  performed,  just  prior  to  obtaining the
              news.daily lock.

       notdaily
              By default news.daily expects to be run only once  a  day.   Use
              this  keyword  any  extra times news.daily is run in the day and
              the normal logfile processing (and rotation) will not be done.

       noexpire
              By default, expire is  invoked  to  remove  old  news  articles.
              Using this keyword disables this function.

       noexplog
              Expire  normally appends information to /var/log/news/expire.log
              (see newslog(5)).  Using this keyword causes the  expire  output
              to  be handled as part of news.daily’s output.  It has no effect
              if the ‘‘noexpire’’ keyword is used.

       flags=’expire args’
              By default, expire is invoked with the an argument  of  ‘‘-v1’’.
              Using this keyword changes the arguments to those specified.  Be
              careful to use quotes if multiple arguments  are  needed.   This
              keyword has no effect if the ‘‘noexpire’’ keyword is used.

       nologs After  expiration,  scanlogs(8)  is  invoked  to process the log
              files.   Using  this  keyword  disables   all   log   processing
              functions.

       norotate
              By  default,  log  processing includes rotating and cleaning out
              log  files.   Using  this  keyword  disables  the  rotating  and
              cleaning  aspect  of the log processing: the logs files are only
              scanned for information and no contents are altered.

              This keyword has no effect if the ‘‘nologs’’  keyword  is  used.
              The  ‘‘norotate’’  keyword  is  passed  on  to scanlogs if it is
              invoked.

       norenumber
              This  keyword  disables  the  ctlinnd(8)   renumber   operation.
              Normally,  the low-water mark for all newsgroups (see active(5))
              is reset.

       norm   By default, any socket ctlinnd socket that has not been modified
              for  two days will be removed.  Using this keyword disables this
              function.

       nomail News.daily normally sends a mail message containing the  results
              to the administrator.  Using this keyword causes this message to
              be sent to stdout and stderr instead.  Normally,  all  utilities
              invoked  by  the  script have their stdout and stderr redirected
              into a file.  If the file is empty, no message is sent.

       expireover
              The expireover program is called after expiration to  purge  the
              overview databases.

       expireoverflags=’expireover args’
              If  the ‘‘expireover’’ keyword is used, this keyword may be used
              to specify the  flags  to  be  passed  to  expireover.   If  the
              ‘‘delayrm’’  keyword  is  used, then the default value is ‘‘-z’’
              and the list of deleted files; otherwise, the default  value  is
              ‘‘-s’’.

       /full/path
              The  program specified by the given path is executed just before
              any expiration  is  done.   A  typical  use  is  to  specify  an
              alternate  expiration  program and use the ‘‘noexpire’’ keyword.
              Multiple programs may be specified;  they  will  be  invoked  in
              order.

HISTORY

       News.daily   and   this   manual  page  written  by  Landon  Curt  Noll
       <chongo@toad.com> and Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net>.  This is revision
       1.11, dated 1996/12/10.

SEE ALSO

       active(5),  ctlinnd(8),  expire(8),  fastrm(8), newslog(5), newslog(8),
       innwatch.ctl(5), shlock(1).

                                                                 NEWS.DAILY(8)